Wanted Dead or Alive. Reward of £16,000 Scots for Notorious Traitors in 1680

In 1680, the Covenanters issued what is perhaps the most radical document in Scottish history, the Sanquhar Declaration of 22 June. The government were outraged and determined to take those behind it. On 30 June, the Privy Council issued a proclamation for the killing or capture of the ‘open and notorious Traitors and Rebels’ involved. The total reward offered for them was 24,000 merks, or £16,000 Scots, dead or alive…

The proclamation named thirteen of the twenty-one individuals said to have taken part in the Sanquhar Declaration. Donald Cargill was also included for his part in the Queensferry Paper.

Who were people proclaimed against? Where did they live? And what happened to them?

1. Richard Cameron.
(Reward 5.000 Merks/£3,333 Scots.)
Formerly of Falkland in Fife, Richard Cameron had been ordained in Rotterdam in late 1679 and returned to field preach in Scotland in 1680. He subscribed the bond before the Sanquhar Declaration and was killed at the battle of Airds Moss on 22 July, 1680. His body is buried in a marked grave on the battlefield.

2. Thomas Douglas.
(Reward 3.000 Merks/£2,000 Scots.)Thomas Douglas had been ordained by Scots ministers in London and taken part in the Bothwell Rising of 1679. He joined Cargill and Cameron’s renewed campaign of field preaching in 1680 and subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. A few days after the proclamation was issued, Douglas, disenchanted by divisions within Cameron’s followers, fled to England. Later, the Society people tried to call Douglas back to preach in the fields, but those moves were opposed by James Renwick. It was rumoured that Douglas had a drink problem in London. After the Revolution, Douglas was the minister of Wamphray parish in Dumfriesshire until his death in 1695. He is buried in the churchyard, but his grave is not marked with a headstone.

3. Donald Cargill.
(Reward 3.000 Merks/£2,000 Scots.)
Originally from near Rattray in Perthshire, Donald Cargill was the minister of Barony parish in Lanarkshire before the Restoration in 1660. In the mid 1670s he took up field preaching, was declared a fugitive and played a leading role in the Bothwell Rising. After a brief spell in exile in Rotterdam, Cargill returned to Scotland and joined Cameron and Douglas in rekindling the militant presbyterian movement. He appears on the proclamation for the Queensferry Paper, which was seized at the beginning of June. He is the only individual named in the proclamation who was not present at Sanquhar. Cargill was executed in Edinburgh in July, 1681.

4. Michael Cameron, formerly of Falkland in Fife.
(Reward 3.000 Merks/£2,000 Scots.)Michael Cameron was the brother of Richard Cameron. He subscribed the bond before Sanquhar and played a leading role in the proclamation of the Sanquhar Declaration. Less than a month after the Government’s proclamation, he was killed with his brother at Airds Moss. His body is buried on the battlefield.

5. Captain John Fowler in Covington parish?, Lanarkshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)John Fowler subscribed the bond before Sanquhar and was killed a few weeks later at Airds Moss. The proclamation described him as ‘sometimes servant to the deceased, [Sir William] Lindsay of Covingtown’.

The Lindsays of Covington lived at Covington Tower. Sir William Lindsay had been appointed by the Convention of Estates of 1678 as a commissioner of supply for the Cess Tax, which was used to suppress Presbyterian dissent. He had died in August, 1679. (Publications of the Clan Lindsay Society (1907), 35-7; RPS, 1678/6/22.)

On his death, Sir William left a son and four daughters. His son, John, did not inherit the heavily indebted estate, as it was already in the hands of creditors. Fowler almost certainly served Sir William, rather than his son, and he may have ended his service before he took part in the Bothwell Rising in June, 1679.

Others in the small parish of Covington supported the Society peoples’ cause, for example, Donald Cargill was seized at Covington Mill in 1681. (Publications of the Clan Lindsay Society (1907), 37; Walker, BP, II, 43.)

Fowler was one of the militants’ commanders at Airds Moss. He is buried on the battlefield.

6. Francis Johnston in Lanarkshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)
Described as a merchant in Clydesdale. His fate is not known.

7. James Stewart at Causeway End in Penninghame parish, Wigtownshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)
James Stewart subscribed the bond before Sanquhar and took part in the declaration, but he is not recorded as present at Airds Moss, although he may have been present.

He was described as ‘Son to Archibald Stewart at Calsey-end, near to the Earl of Galloway’s House’. Calsey-end, now Causeway End, lies in Penninghame parish, Wigtownshire. Both ‘James Stuart, son to Archibald Stuart in Causey-end’ and his father appear on the Fugitive Roll of 1684. (Jardine, ‘United Societies’, II, 214.)

Clary House, which lay just to the east of Causeway End, was the winter seat of Alexander Stewart, earl of Galloway. Today, Clary House has completely vanished.

Kilsture

8. Alexander Gordon of Kilsture, or ‘of Kinstuir’ or ‘of Creuch’/Cleuch/Creech, Sorbie parish, Wigtownshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)Alexander Gordon of Kilsture subscribed the bond before Sanquhar and took part in the proclaiming the Sanquhar Declaration. He was later opposed to James Renwick’s leadership of the United Societies. In May, 1686, he was in the United Provinces attempting to drum up support in opposition to Renwick. He returned to Scotland where he was captured. At some point before the Revolution, he is reported to have died by falling down a stair after a drunken fight.

Different versions of the proclamation published north and south of the Border record him as either called ‘of Kilsture’, or ‘of Creuch’.

Alexander Gordon was probably related in some way to the Henry/Harie Gordon of Kilsture who appears in early seventeenth-century records. (Supplement to the Dictionary of the decisions of the Court of Session, I, 362; Agnew, Hereditary Sheriffs of Galloway, 8.)

The lands of Kilsture appear to have come into the possession of Sir David Dunbar of Baldoon (d.1686) and his heirs, who held ‘all and entire the [twenty merk] lands of Kilsture, Cleuch and Blair, with the corn and waulk mill of Blair, mill lands, multures and sequels of the same, lying in the parish of Sorbie’. (RPS, 1705/6/132.)

‘Creuch’, aka. Cleuch, is either Creich/Creech beside Kilsture. Blair, refers to Blair Hill/High Blair/Low Blair to the south of Kilsture.

9. Daniel McMichael in Lorgfoot, Dalry parish, Kirkcudbrightshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)
Daniel McMichael subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. He was summarily executed after he was captured in early 1685. The proclamation described his as ‘Daniel Mackmitchel in Lorgfoot’.

In the nineteenth century, Simpson claimed that McMichael’s home at ‘Lurgfoot’ was later renamed Blairfoot and lay in Morton parish, Dumfriesshire.

The farm at Blairfoot lay close to the confluence of the How Gill, which flows down from the ruins of Morton Castle, and the Kettleton Burn (i.e., just to the east of the Burn Point Plantation. It is marked on Roy’s map of the 1750s as Blairfoot, but it had vanished by the time of the first OS map in the mid nineteenth century, i.e., when Simpson wrote.

However, Simpson’s claim that Lurg Foot lay in Morton parish is based on false information. It may indicate a desire by local people to claim their local martyr as one of their own.

The evidence of maps, charters and the activities of Daniel McMichael establish that his home was at Lorgfoot in Dalry parish, Kirkcudbrightshire.

Today, Lorg and Lorg Hill are very remote locations which lie in, or on the boundary of, Dalry parish in Kirkcudbrightshire, close to were the shire borders Penpont parish in Dumfriesshire and Cumnock parish in Ayrshire.

Lorg Foot

On Roy’s map of the 1750s, ‘Lorg Foot’ is clearly marked exactly where Lorg is located. Lorg is Lorg Foot, which lies in Dalry parish.

The McMichael family had occupied Lorg for at least a century. A testament dative of Patrick Hislop in Holm of Dalquhairn in Dalry parish, which was registered in Edinburgh on 22 November, 1589, mentions a Thomas McMichael, elder, in Blackcraig in Cumnock parish and that the deceased was owed money by Dungual McMichael in Lorgfoot and Fergus McMillan in Arnderroch in Dalry parish. (Reid, Edinburgh Commissariot, CLX, 37.)

An instrument of sasine in favour of John Campbell of Garrallan in Cumnock parish of 1632 was witnessed by James McMichael in Lorgfoot, James McMichael, his son and heir, and ‘John Amiligane in Holm of Dalquhairn’ in Dalry parish. (Campbell, The Clan Campbell, Abstracts of Entries relating to Campbells in the Early Unprinted Records relating to Ayrshire 1515-1650, V, 76.)

The published Fugitive Roll listed Daniel MacMichael ‘in Lurg-foot’. McMichael was also active in the neighbouring parish of Penpont parish in Dumfriesshire in mid 1684. His brother, James McMichael, subscribed the bond before Sanquhar and was killed at Auchencloy in December, 1684. (Jardine, II, 217.)

10. John Vallange/Vallence in Auchinleck parish, Ayrshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)John Vallange/Vallence subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. He fought at Airds Moss and was taken prisoner. He died a few days later in Edinburgh from the wounds he had received in the battle. According to Wodrow, he was from Auchinleck parish. (Wodrow, History, III, 221.)

According to the proclamation he was the ‘Brother-in-Law to Robert Park, one of the Bailiffs of Sanquhar’.

Hole

11. Thomas Campbell in Hole, Auchinleck parish, Ayrshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)Thomas Campbell subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. According to the proclamation, he was Thomas Campbell, ‘Son to [John] Campbel late of Dalblair in Auchinleck Parish’. John Campbell had formerly held the lands of Nether Dalblair and the merkland of Hole. (Paterson, History of the Counties of Ayr and Wigton, I, 201.)

Thomas was the ‘Thomas Campbell in Hole’ who was listed on the published Fugitive Roll of 1684. (Jardine, II, 204.)

Cubs

12. John Moodie in Cubs Hill, Auchinleck parish, Ayrshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)
John Moodie subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. He lived a short way down the Glenmuir Water from Thomas Campbell in Hole. According to the proclamation he was ‘John Moodie, Brother to [David] the Miller at Cubs-Milne’ in Auchinleck parish. Both he and his brother appear on the Fugitive Roll of 1684 as ‘John Mudie, in Cubs-hill’ and ‘David Mudie, in Cubs-mill [wanted] for reset’. (Jardine, II, 204.)

‘Cubs-hill’ probably refers to the farm at Cubs, although it could be an error for Cubs Mill. The farm at Cubs lay above and up stream from the mill.

Both Cubs and Cubs Mill sat on the parish boundary with Cumnock parish.

Wodrow records that John’s brother, David, was forced from his house and into temporary wandering for refusing to appear before a court in 1682. (Wodrow, History, III, 387.)

Waterhead and Craigminn

13. John Crichton, in Waterhead or Craigminn in Cumnock parish, Ayrshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)John Crichton subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. According to the proclamation, ‘[John] Crichton was ‘Son to Robert Creichtown of Achtitinch, now in Water-head’.

Waterhead lay at the western edge of Cumnock parish. On Roy’s map it is situated on the southern bank of the River Nith opposite Craigminn. Today, the site of Waterhead and most of Craigminn has been obliterated by open cast coal mining.

Waterhead and Craigminn also lay close to the farms of Dalgig and Benbain, both of which have connections to the Society people.

John Crichton appears on the published Fugitive Roll as ‘—— Crichton in Craigmann’. (Jardine, ‘United Societies’, II, 205.)

In 1685, his father, Robert, was resident in Craigminn.

Old Castle of Cumnock

14. Patrick Gemmell, in the Old Castle of Cumnock, Cumnock parish, Ayrshire.
(Reward 1.000 Merks/£666 Scots.)Patrick Gemmell, aka. Peter Gemmell, subscribed the bond before Sanquhar. The proclamation described him as the ‘Son-in-law to Charles Logan, Messenger at Cumnock-maines’. Cumnock Mains is Castle Mains, which lies across a ford on the Afton from the Old Castle of Cumnock. Today, both the castle and the mains lie in New Cumnock.

Gemmell was summarily executed in a raid on Midland in Fenwick parish in November, 1685. He is buried in a marked grave in Fenwick churchyard under the name Peter Gemmell.

The privy council and soldiers involved in his death are unequivocal that the Patrick Gemmell killed at Midland was the same person as the Patrick Gemmell from Cumnock parish who was named in the proclamation after the Sanquhar Declaration. There is no doubt that Patrick Gemmell had lived in Cumnock parish before he was killed in Fenwick parish.

However, there are rival claims over which parish he originated from.

In 1775, nearly a century after the Midland killings, John Howie of Lochgoin stated that Patrick was ‘a younger brother of the house of Horsehill’ in Fenwick parish, but the phrase used by Lochgoin is ambiguous. It could mean he was a younger brother of one of the Gemmells in Horsehill or a younger brother of a Gemmell who held Horsehill. The ‘a’, rather than ‘the’, ‘younger brother’ would appear to indicate there was at least one other younger brother. What it may indicate is that Patrick was kin to the house of Horsehill, rather than from Horsehill.

The inscription on his grave in Fenwick churchyard states that he was ‘aged 21 years’. However, it is not clear when that information was inscribed on the gravestone. Early editions of Cloud of Witnesses before 1778, do not record the ‘for bearing his faithful Testimony to the Cause of Christ aged 21 years’ element of the inscription. That may be an omission by Cloud, as early editions of it only referenced the existence of the grave and did not include the full inscription. (See Cloud of Witnesses (1778), 375-6.)

The gravestone visible today is probably a replacement for a now lost original stone. It is possible that an extended version of inscription was recorded on it. According to Thomson, the inscription had been ‘retouched and deepened’ by the mid nineteenth century. (Thomson, Martyrs Graves, 109.)

It is possible that Howie of Lochgoin’s claim that Peter was a younger brother of the house of Horsehill and the inscription on the gravestone are interrelated, as the gravestone appears to have been erected either a year before Howie’s Scots Worthies of 1775, or a few years after Howie published.

The style of the present gravestone certainly does not date to the early eighteenth century and there is no mention on it that it has been renewed by public subscription in the nineteenth century. The present stone was probably erected by the Gemmell family and probably copied the inscription on an earlier stone.

It is different from earlier Covenanter stones in that the inscription is not split in the usual form between the ‘information’ on the front and a poem on the reverse. It is also worth noting that the inscription does not make the express claim that they died for the Solemn League and Covenant, as is often inscribed on the first wave of stones erected continuing Society people between 1702 ans 1714.

The original stone was probably replaced when the present stone was erected. The erection of the latter can probably be dated from the inscription on the reverse. It records several members of the Gemmell family. The first three names inscribed on the reverse appear to have been added at the same time. They are David Gemmell, Mary Young and David Gemmell, their son, who died between 1758 and 1774. After their names, the inscription mentions that ‘also’ a Matthew Gemmell died in 1791, before what appears to be a natural break in the text and a change in hand records the death of Agnes Gemmell in 1806. The evidence of the inscription on the reverse probably indicates that the original gravestone was replaced in the late eighteenth century, either after 1774, or after 1791.

If the stone was erected in 1774, after the death of Mary Young, or after 1791, with the death of Matthew Gemmell, it indicates that the Gemmell family believed they had some form of kinship to Peter Gemmell, probably since at least the first date on the reverse of the grave of 1758. It is possible that Howie was aware of that claim before the grave was erected, as he was educated at Horsehill when he was a youth and knew the family.

Which Peter Gemmell did the erectors of the 1774/1792 gravestone think was buried there? A clue to that lies in the claim that Peter Gemmell was twenty-one years old. The old register of births, which was then held in Fenwick church, records a ‘Peter’ Gemmell, the son of David Gemmell in Horsehill, as baptised on 8 August, 1663. It is his baptism which probably led to the inscription’s claim that ‘Peter’ was twenty-one. The inscription does not record a month in 1685 for the killing. Whoever pulled the inscription together for the grave appears not to have known, or noticed, that the killing took place in November, as the Peter in the baptism register would have been twenty-two in November, 1685.

What we can say with some degree of confidence is that the erectors of the present gravestone in 1774 or 1791 thought that Peter Gemmell, the son of David Gemmell in Horsehill, was buried in the grave and that they were kin to him.

However, the problem with the Fenwick origin story of Peter Gemmell, is that the Patrick Gemmell who was killed at Midland had clearly lived in Cumnock before 1685.

Robert Guthrie has recently argued that Patrick Gemmell may be the son of the John Gemmell in St Brydsbank, Cumnock parish, who was killed at Airds Moss. Guthrie’s case is well made. You can read it here.

Brydsbank lay on the west bank of the Connel Burn to the north of Brockloch.

Missing from the Proclamation?
By the government’s own reckoning, the names of eight individuals who were involved in the Sanquhar Declaration are not recorded in the proclamation. It is likely that some of those missing individuals are contained in the Bond Before Sanquhar, which was subscribed before the declaration and not in government hands at the time of the proclamation. The Bond contains the names of fifteen individuals who do not appear in the proclamation. Of them, six names on the bond were with Cameron both before the Sanquhar Declaration and later at Airds Moss, where they were either killed, captured or escaped. It is possible that those six men also took part in the declaration. They are Robert Dick, John Gemmill in St Brydsbank, John Hamilton, John Malcolm, John Patterson and John Potter.

Parishes in the Proclamation.

An Analysis of the Proclamation
To discover the traitors the proclamation ordered all of inhabitants aged over sixteen in seventeen parishes to assemble at a court to be held in the parish. There they were to swear an oath to reveal ‘whether any of these Traitors foresaid were in that Parish, and where and when’.

Of the seventeen parishes listed, six were in Kirkcudbrightshire, five in Ayrshire, three in Dumfriesshire, two in Lanarkshire and one in Wigtownshire.

Of the seventeen parishes listed, only three – Penninghame, Dalry and Cumnock – can be connected to fugitives named in the proclamation. Three parishes where fugitives came from – Auchinleck, Covington, Sorbie – are not listed.

The authorities do not appear to have selected the list of parishes on the basis of information about where the people behind the Sanquhar Declaration came from.

It is possible that the list of parishes was selected on the basis of information about where Cameron had been, or was suspected of having been, active before the Sanquhar Declaration. If they do reflect that information, then they offer a glimpse into the very hazy world of where Cameron was active before the Sanquhar Declaration.

With the exception of two outliers, Irongray parish in Kirkcudbrightshire and Tundergarth parish in Annandale, Dumfriesshire, the remaining fifteen parishes fall into two distinct blocks. (See the chart above)

Curiously, the two blocks are divided by a single parish, Auchinleck, which is not mentioned as a parish where oaths were to be taken even though four of the named fugitives came from it.

Is the choice of parishes significant?
On one level the oath takings mentioned in the proclamation were designed to gather intelligence about Cameron’s band. However, the oath takings may also have performed a second function. The oaths were to be taken in the named parishes on the regular basis of the ‘second and last Tuesdays of July and August’, i.e., on 13 and 27 July and 10 and 24 August. The idea behind the oath takings in each of named parishes may have been to deny Cameron and his followers space by restricting the number of safe havens he could use in the areas where he was either known to have, or suspected of having, support. With the exception of a joint preaching with Cargill in Evandale parish on 18 July, which took place between oath takings, Cameron does not appear to preached in the areas where the oath was enforced. Instead, he preached in the parishes of Auchinleck (4 July), Carluke (8 July) and Crawfordjohn (11 July).

It is possible that the list of parishes either deterred, or curtailed, Cameron’s actions in those parishes and flushed him out into what the government saw as more promising hunting grounds. When he was finally cornered on 22 July, Cameron was at Airds Moss in Auchinleck parish, the parish which is notable for its absence from the list of parishes ordered to take oaths.

It is possible that the proclamation was part of a coordinated plan involving legal and military forces to narrow down Cameron’s options and trap him. If it was part of such a plan, it certainly succeeded.

11 Responses to “Wanted Dead or Alive. Reward of £16,000 Scots for Notorious Traitors in 1680”

Hi Mark, Thank you for the kind words about my research on the Gemmills of New Cumnock. It is interesting to note that on the 30th June 1680, the same day the proclamation for the capture of the notorious rebels was issued, the Earl of Airlie was ordered to march with ‘three troops of dragoons and two troops of horse’ from Ayr to Cumnock Castle (New Cumnock). On the 4th July he wrote from the ‘Old Castle near the New Kirk of Cumnock’ and with him at that time was ‘the brother of a murdered dragoon’ and reported that Cameron’s partie had split into twos and threes. The next day in a letter from ‘Gemmells Meadow near the Old Castle of Cumnock’ he wrote that Cameron with a partie of 13 or 14 horss had been at Corsancone (New Cumnock). Gemmells Meadow is surely named from the family of Patrick Gemmell. all the best, Bobby

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